Book review: Thailand, Out In

Here's a review of two new books.

Title: Thailand, For The Indian TravellerAuthor: CY Gopinath and Meraj ShahPublisher: Lonely PlanetPrice: Rs 495A week after planning my year-end holidays to Thailand, getting this book to review was a welcome surprise. So, I didn’t read it to review but to plan my holidays.

The book is well-written and divides the whole of Thailand into interesting tourist locations and cities. For example, if you plan to visit Pattaya, the book would very briefly introduce you to the place and the ways of reaching there. This is followed by top five must-do things in that particular city. Also, there are descriptions of places to stay at and eat at, complete with price tags.

For shopaholics, there is a well-researched section on markets and, most importantly, their timings and the kind of goods that are available there. The language is simple and caters to Indian audience, considering the edition is ‘Indian Traveller’. And yet, the approach is very global.Aakriti SawhneyTitle: Out InAuthor: Robert E. D’SouzaPublisher: W+K PublishingPrice: Rs 1,000At first flip, it looks like a good overview of everyday India in art. And everyday art in India. Moving metaphorical photographs of toilet doors, a cover with a shutter effect, old distempered walls and empty chairs, sleeping dogs next to dead fountains, art emerging from the insides of a ramshackled construction site. The pictures, stark in reality and duality, press you to read the words that precede and follow. There’s conversation between the art-expert author and a literature exponent, and essays, perspectives, explaining the paradox that rests in the book’s title and our art. Each line is carefully crafted and not a word out of place — the authors are professors, of course. The dwellings are very deliberate, very deep, and not for passing lookers and easy readers. This stuff is good for the serious art fan, student, researcher or doer.Soumya Mukerji